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CONTEMPORARY BRITISH ARTISTS: 
CHARLES SHANNON 
General Gditor: ALBERT RUTHERSTON 








SELF-PORTRAIT. (1917). Oil. In the possession of the Artist. 


CHARLES SHANNON 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1924 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 


THANKS are due to the National Gallery of British Art 
for the permission kindly given to reproduce Mrs. 
Patrick Campbell, to Mr. Joseph Bibby who owns the 
copyright in The Wise and Foolish Virgins, and to 
Mr. Shannon himself for the valuable assistance he 
has given. 

Acknowledgment is gratefully offered also to 
those private owners of Mr. Shannon’s pictures and 
drawings who have courteously allowed photographs 
to be made of them for the purposes of this volume. 

All copyrights, except where acknowledged as 
otherwise, are strictly the property of the artist. 


Made and Printed in Great Britain at 
The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, William Brendon & Son, Ltd. 


ee eet 


Biohe@r ete AClhS 


SELF-PORTRAIT. (1917). Jn the possession of the artist. Frontispiece 


SOUVENIR OF VAN Dyck (Miss KaTE Harcoop). (1897). National Gallery, 
Melbourne. 


THE ARTIST (THE MAN IN A BLACK SHIRT). (1897). In the possession of 
Edmund Davis, Esq. 


CHARLES RICKETTS (THE MAN IN AN INVERNESS CoAT). (1898). In the 
possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


THE LADY WITH A CYCLAMEN (Hon. Mrs. CHALONER DowpALL). (1899). 
In the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Chaloner Dowdall. 


THE TOILET. (1900-1902). In the possession of William Pye, Esq. 
THE SAPPHIRE Bay. (1903). Jn the possession of Fohn Quinn, Esq. 
THE LADY WITH A FEATHER. (1903). Venice. 


THE BATH oF VENUS. (1898-1904). Formerly in the possession of the late 
Lord Northcliffe. 


TIBULLUS IN THE House oF Detia. (1900-1905). In the possession of 
Edmund Davis, Esq. 


THE INFANT Baccuus. (1900-1906). In the possession of the artist. 
THE WOODNYMPH. (1903-1906). In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


Miss LILLAH MACARTHY IN THE CHARACTER OF DoNA ANA. (1907). In 
the possession of Fohn Quinn, Esq. 


THE Scutptress (Mrs. HILTON YouNG).. (1907). Musée du Luxembourg. 


SOUVENIR OF AN “ INTERNATIONAL” BALL. (1907). In the possession of 
Sir Kaye Murr. 


Mrs. PaTRIcK CAMPBELL. (1908). National Gallery of British Art. 
THE VINTAGE. (1910). In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 
Tue MorninG ToILeT. (1912). In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


7 


18. 


19. 


20. 


21. 


22. 


24: 
24. 


ae, 
26. 


27, 


28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 


321 
33: 
34. 
35: 


LIST SOR; PUATES 


THE WINTER NicuT. (1914). In the possession of the Hon. Kojiro 
Matsukata, Tokio. 

THE LaDy IN A THREE-CORNERED HaT. (1915). Jn the possession of Ralston 
Mitchell, Esq. 

THE MAN WITH THE GREEK VASE. (1916). In the possession of Mrs. Edmund 
Davis. 


Tue INcomiInG Tipe. (1918). In the possession of the Hon. Kojiro 
Matsukata, Tokio. 


THE EpucaTION oF BaccuHus. (1919). In the possession of Mrs. Edmund 
Davis. 

MIRIAM. (1920). In the possession of the artist. 

THE WISE AND FOOLISH VIRGINS. (1920). In the possession of Joseph 
Bibby, Esq. 

THE CONVALESCENT. (1921). In the possession of the artist. 

VANITY AND SANITY. (1921). The Diploma Gallery, Burlington House. 


THE GOLDEN AGE. (1921-1922). Formerly in the collection of the late 
Lord Northcliffe. 


PursuIT. (1922). In the possession of the artist. 7 

THE WOUNDED AMAZON. (1922). In the possession of the artist. 

STUDY FoR ‘‘ THE BATH oF VENUS.” (1900). Ina private collection. 

THE LATE E. J. VAN WISSELINGH. (1900). In the possession of Mrs. Van 
Wisselingh. 

Stupy For “THE Fruit SuHop.”’ (1913). In the possession of the artist. 

REAPER AND SOWER. (1915). In the possession of the artist. 

Two Drapep Ficures. (1917). In the possession of the artist. 

BATHERS. (1917). In the possession of the artist. 


CHARLES SHANNON. R.A. 


HARLES SHANNON came into notice as a painter 
6 of marked individuality and rare distinction in the 
— year 1897 with the exhibition of four pictures—the 
Souvenir of Van Dyck and The Man in a Black Shirt, shown 
respectively at the New English Art Club and the Royal 
Society of Portrait Painters; and The Wounded Amazon and 
the Portrait of Sturge Moore, which were sent to Munich, 
where they obtained a gold medal, Burne-Jones also receiving 
a gold medal at the same exhibition. 

The aims and methods of Shannon’s art at this period 
were in marked divergence from those in fashion at the 
moment, when the Newlyn School on the one hand, and the 
influence of the French Impressionists on the other, were 
leading directly away from the manner of design and the 
technical methods of the old masters. Academic art, as ex- 
emplified by such painters as Leighton and Poynter, was 
becoming sterile, and the work of Watts and Burne-Jones, 
though still in high popular favour, had for the most part 
ceased to influence the younger generation. 

In Shannon’s case there was the inevitable period of proba 

9 


CHARLES SHANNON 


tion, but none of hesitation ; his instincts, tastes, and talents 
led him at once to the style of art and to the special range of 
subject which he has since developed, but from which he has 
never departed. His inspiration and stimulus have their origin 
in those moods of romantic and idyllic imagination which 
found their first complete expression in European painting in 
the art of Giorgione and Titian, but which were not unknown 
to Mr. Kipling’s cave man. 

For a period of about seven years, at the beginning of his 
career, Shannon’s exhibited work was confined to lithographs, 
pastels, and water-colours, during which time he was also 
making those experiments in the use of oil paint, which re- 
sulted in the beautiful and sound technical achievement of the 
four pictures previously mentioned. 

The methods of oil painting employed by the Italians, by 
Rubens, Van Dyck, and their followers, had for many years 
passed almost entirely out of use and had been forgotten; a 
few British painters, as for instance Watts and Burne-Jones, 
had studied the technique of Italy and rediscovered some of 
its secrets, but in doing so they studied a lost art and had to. 
make their own discoveries. As is now well known, this 
method was based on the principle of transparency of pigment ; 
the picture was begun either in a very light monochrome; 


using white, or in a pale transparent monochrome, or, if this 
10 


CHARLES SHANNON 


was dispensed with, in a very light key of colour, paler and 
flatter than it was to be when finished. The whole picture 
was carried through in this light key to a state of considerable 
completion, when it was put aside and allowed to dry. After 
this, the stronger local colours and tones were glazed trans- 
parently over the under-painting, and this again was worked 
over once or more times with superimposed layers of trans- 
parent or semi-transparent colour. The principle may be 
likened to the light shining through a stained-glass window, 
the lighter tones and colours underneath being allowed to 
make themselves felt through those above, giving a glow and 
luminosity to the colour of the whole. Those who have copied 
good pictures by the old masters done in this method, will 
realize the utter impossibility of obtaining their results by 
opaque direct painting ; the results of the latter may be beautiful, 
but they are different in kind. There is an entrancing loveli- 
ness about the actual painting of such pictures as the Bacchus 
and Ariadne, Rubens’ Rape of the Sabines, or a good Van Dyck 
portrait, which, when once understood and appreciated, appears 
to make other methods less valuable by comparison. For 
those who are built to fall in love with this kind of painting, 
no other method will suffice. 

Shannon is one of these, and being in personal contact with 


no one who could show him the way, he had to find it out for 
II 


CHARLES SHANNON 


himself, with only such assistance as he could get from hearsay 
and from his own innate gift of the painter’s sense. When we 
consider the immense difficulties to be encountered, the quick- 
ness and sureness with which he mastered the means is 
astonishing. Such artists as Legros and Whistler were cap- 
tivated at once and were generous in their praise. 

In art “ the style is the man,” and in Shannon’s style lies 
the keynote of his temperament. His ideas could be carried 
out in no other manner than the one he has chosen; the 
delicate gradations, impastos, and granulation of his pigment 
are an essential part of his language; they carry with them 
and enhance the meaning of his pictures. The essential quality 
underlying his colour and tone, the quality that gives them 
their individual note, is produced by the subtle manipulation 
of the paint; the technique of his pictures is itself a living 
thing, every inch of the canvas is fully intended, and arrived 
at by a predetermined method. ‘The attraction of swift, 
emphatic brushwork, that achieves its effect at once and must 
not be touched again, is not aimed at; his is the other kind of 
beauty which needs for its expression to linger with delight 
over the objects represented, extracting from them the utmost 
they are capable of yielding in charm of colour, delicate surface, 
and intimacy. This quality is felt in all painters to whose work 


the term exquisite can be applied, to Vermeer, for example, 
I2 


CHARLES SHANNON 


in whose pictures every object, while taking its place perfectly 
in the whole, is made also an end in itself. It is this love of 
perfection, of a beautiful whole, beautiful in all its parts, which 
can be looked at from any range, at a distance delighting the . 
eye by its design and colour, on close inspection by its jewelled 
surfaces, that stamps the character of Shannon’s work. 

A man’s influences are his affinities, and it is difficult to 
say whether this or that quality in a painter’s work is the 
result of influence, or is the expression of some innate quality 
in his own temperament, which has affinity with his prototype. 
There is such an affinity between Shannon and Watts, though 
on analysis of their work it is not easy to define the exact 
points where it lies. ‘They are different in many ways; in 
Watts the essential spirit is aspiring, in Shannon contem- 
plative ; with Shannon the surfaces are flat and decorative, 
with Watts, in his later work, at any rate, they are broken and 
flickering ; Watts’ design tends to spread out, in Shannon’s 
design the figures are generally arranged either in a solid 
pyramid form, or in a circular sweep round the edges of the 
picture with the focus inwards. 

Yet there is a marked temperamental affinity in certain 
points ; it shows itself chiefly in a similar response, felt by 
each, to a certain aspect of the beauty of women, expressed in 


a droop of the head, sidelong and forwards, carrying with it 
13 


CHARLES SHANNON 


in each case a similar emotion ; it can be seen in many of the 
reproductions here given, and one has only to recall, on Watts’ 
side, the pictures of Psyche, of Ariadne, or of Daphne, for the 
similarity to become clear. 

Shannon’s chief affinities are however with Titian, Watteau, 
and Van Dyck—Watteau’s influence showing most clearly in 
the drawings ; Van Dyck’s chiefly on the technical side, but 
sometimes also in the design of the portraits. But Shannon’s 
attitude towards nature and life and the mood of his imagination 
are more closely allied to those of Titian in such pictures aS 
the Three Ages of Man, The Bacchanal in the Prado, and the 
Sacred and Profane Love, than of any other painter. It is such 
works as these which first pointed the direction into that 
world of idyllic romance which his imagination inhabits. 
Almost the first quality to strike one, I think, in Shannon’s 
pictures is a sense of quietness or even silence ; his pictures 
seem designed to be the accompaniment of music, but of music 
present to the memory rather than the ear, and with this silence, 
and related to it, is the sense of the sadness inherent in beauty. 
Shannon makes men and women who are always young and 
fair, while he himself, like those figures who stand apart in 
Watteau’s pictures, looks back at the beings he has created with 
the secret thought : | 


‘* How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!”’ 
14 


CHARLES SHANNON 


His temperament leads him to dream of the past, and to 
find especial delight in the beautiful things of the present as 
they show themselves to be related to past loveliness. ‘There 
is a shift of the vivid reality of the present behind veils of 
silence, where the passions become remote and sounds pene- 
trate like thin echoes. The efforts of the intellect that probes 
and investigates have no place in this world of quietism, where 
women dream by seashores or comb their hair before dim 
mirrors in a mood of brooding romance. But these moods 
are enlarged and widened to become part of the beauty and the 
sadness which are present in all things, they are taken out of 
the particular and turned into symbols of their kind, so that 
the design which they inspire is broad and massive. It is this 
crystallization of personal emotion into its appropriate design 
that is Shannon’s chief contribution to art ; his pictures could 
be stripped of their colour and all the embellishments of their 
craftsmanship (with infinite loss it is true) and still remain ex- 
pressive monuments of a deep and noble emotion. It is his 
distinction that, while founding his work on the greatest 
examples of one of the chief schools of European painting, he 
has found the means of obtaining new emotional beauties, 
fresh and original arabesques of design. He has, so to speak, 
taken on all the difficulties, he has accepted an artistic conven- 


tion of the full maturity of the greatest period of painting, in 
B be 


CHARLES SHANNON 


rediscovering a large part of its technical secrets, and trans- 
forming them to his own needs he has stamped them with 
his own individuality. | 

He has that rare quality, a sense of beauty ; it shows itself 
in every part of his work, in his design, in his colour, in his 
thoughts, and in the means he uses to express them. 

It is a point perhaps worth remembering in the case of 
Charles Shannon, that no part of his world-wide reputation* 
has at any time depended on the passing vogue or fashion. 
Fashion which counts so enormously at the time, counts for 
nothing in the long run, when all works of art come, so to 
speak, naked and alone to receive judgment. Any kind of 
prophecy in such matters is vain, but such work as has received 
recognition and admiration apart from fashion or in spite of it, 
would seem to have at least as good a chance of appreciation 
ultimately as that which received it with the assistance to 
sympathy and understanding which being in the fashion 
always brings. 

Shannon’s pictures, like everyone else’s, need to be seen in 
their proper setting for their intrinsic beauty to be fully appre- 
ciated, and a modern exhibition, bad for all, is unusually bad 
for him; beautiful and distinguished as his pictures look, 

* His pictures are in the public galleries of Paris, Venice, Melbourne, Munich 


and other German towns, in the National Gallery of British Art, and in Manchester. 


16 


CHARLES SHANNON 


even in these conditions, his style and atmosphere are so 
different from those around him, that there is not time to get 
into it, and to appreciate his work on its own terms and at its 
proper value. Placed, as many of his pictures are, in great 
private collections, among the masterpieces of the past, their 
immense distinction, reserve, and beauty, enable them trium- 
phantly to hold their own. 

Shannon’s work divides itself into two main groups of 
almost equal importance, portraiture and figure design, and in 
both the element of design is paramount. The art of portrait- 
painting itself can be divided into two main categories, one in 
which the vivid presentation of the subject dominates every 
other consideration, as in the work of Frans Hals, and as in 
the greater part of modern portraiture ; the other, that in which, 
added to this, there is an equally strong impulse towards 
making a beautiful decorative whole, as in the work of Titian, 
Holbein, and Van Dyck, and in fact in very many of the old 
masters. There is, of course, no sharp dividing line between 
the two, the portraits of Rembrandt belonging neither to the 
one nor the other, but in sympathy certainly inclining towards 
the latter ; his own special atmosphere and quality of aloofness 
from the actual world taking the place of decoration. In the 
best work of the former category good design, or good enough 


design, exists, but is subordinated to the other interest. 
a7 


CHARLES SHANNON 


Shannon’s portraits, it need not be said, belong to the 
second of these groups; the first thing to strike one is the 
beauty of the design and the decorative massing of the tones 
and colour, and, as a part of these, the impression of notable 
distinction. Where these qualities are conspicuous in all, any 
one may be selected as an example—that of Mrs. Patrick Campbell 
for instance, in the Tate Gallery (Plate No. 15), is an admirable 
portrait, it is equally a fine piece of decoration. It is an 
intricate arrangement of curves and straight lines, the curved 
lines of the eucalyptus twigs and of the sitter’s back lead the 
eye up from the square forms at the base of the picture to the 
circular sweep of the mirror. The shape of the whole figure 
forms a pyramid, which is repeated on a smaller scale by the 
dark triangular mass of the shawl. In addition to the beauty 
of the whole, and of the sitter’s face and expression, there is a 
sense of importance and massiveness about this picture, which, 
starting as an emotion felt by the artist, is given expression to 
by scientific means. The analysis can be extended—the 
curves at the back of the head and the line made by the jaw—an 
ugly word but I can think of no other—are sympathetic to the 
curve of the mirror, and are intended to be so. ‘There are 
triangles everywhere, the top of the shoulders cut off by the 
shawl, the upper part of the music book, the lower part of the 


dress, and the corner of the piano. All these shapes are 
18 ae 


(CHARLES SHANNON 
pleasing to the eye by the part they play in forming a fine and 


living arabesque. 

_ There has perhaps been too much talk lately of pictures 
as if they were a mere conglomeration of geometrical shapes ; 
the use of such shapes as a basis for the construction of pictures 
is no new discovery, and has been practised by painters of note 
at all periods. Thus used they are merely a means to building 
up a solid and compact design and to making a fine pattern ; to 
talk of them as having an intrinsic value in themselves is to 
miss the point ; they have none at all, unless the pattern they 
help to make is beautiful and the conception they help to 
convey is inspired. | 

The laws which underlie the emotional significance of 
certain arrangements and juxtapositions of such shapes are 
outside the scope of this introduction, and are perhaps incalcu- 
lable, but that the translation of natural shapes into such 
patterns can be made to convey emotion is certain. They do 
so, not by themselves, but in conjunction with what can only 
be described as the spirit or the soul of the subject. 

Another aspect of Shannon’s portraiture can be examined 
in The Man in a Black Shirt. How important a part the purely 
technical use of the paint plays in the effect of the whole can 
be seen even in the reproduction and is far more apparent in 


the original. The horizontal grain in the background carries 
a9 


CHARLES SHANNON 


out the horizontal lines of the box and of the portfolio-stand, 
and acts as a foil to the perpendicular direction of the figure. 
Then, too, this grained surface is in itself beautiful, it gives 
vibration and life to a large plain area and saves it from any 
monotony, and it makes a valuable contrast to the flatter 
texture of the face and dark boxes, involving a very subtle use 
of the principle of plain and decorated surfaces acting as foils 
to each other. The impression conveyed by the original is 
solemn and impressive in the extreme, the reproduction 
shows little of its power; there is a restrained force apparent 
in every part, in the massive handling of the paint, and the 
sombre yet delicate colour-scheme of black and silver. That 
such understanding, so much power and dignity should 
have been arrived at so early as in this picture, painted 
only seven years after the artist began his studies, is most 
remarkable. 

The prevailing note of colour in the greater number of the 
portraits is a sombre and muted richness; in some of the 
early ones especially, the quietness is carried to the point of 
severity. In the portrait of Charles Ricketts (No. 3), as in 
The Man in a Black Shirt, the impression is of black and silver 
alone, and there is something immensely impressive in this 
restraint, which carries with it the sense of a great reserve of 


power, and gives an air of the most dignified distinction. 
20 


CHARLES SHANNON 


At certain times, as in The Man with the Greek Vase (No. 20), 
a much richer scheme is used ; here the brilliant. blackness of 
the coat is relieved against the subdued but intense crimson 
of the sofa, and the ruddy gold of the screen ; a warm golden 
veil has been passed over the reds and greys of the flesh colour 
in the face and hands; the intent and sphinx-like look in the 
face, with the rhythmic lines of the design and the deep 
splendour of the colour make this picture a masterpiece of 
another order. 

A study of Shannon’s portraits reveals a wonderful power 
of design ; in the Souvenir of Van Dyck, for example, the two 
elements of line and of mass are used with equal mastery. 
There is a perfect sense of proportion in the placing and scale 
of the figure ; the simple emphatic masses of dark and light 
and half-tone give breadth and power and completely satisfy 
the eye, while every line is alive ; the folds of the costume, of 
the table-cloth and the lines on the floor forming a kind of 
dancing yet measured rhythm, in perfect keeping with the 
youth of the subject and the fantastic nature of her dress ; it 
is an interpretation, not only of a young girl, but of a mood 
of youthfully serious festivity. 

Inseparable from Shannon’s sense of design is his sense of 
colour, which while clothing the composition with an added 


beauty, seems to have been present from the first inception as 
21 


‘CHARLES SHANNON 


the deciding factor in the whole. It is in the severest of his 
men’s portraits that this essential colour-sense can be best 
seen, from the very fact that in them his range is most restricted, 
merely to a black and silver, or black and brown, and the colour 
of the flesh ;, yet these simple elements are played upon with 
such subtle art, the gradations are so delicate and the contrasts 
so forcible that the result is a delightful colour harmony. 

The mood of his portraits is always one of remoteness ; 
unlike Frans Hals, for instance, his sitters are never made to 
take their. part vividly in the world of the present. But, in one 
particular, like those of Frans Hals and unlike those of Titian, 
with whom, in other respects, they have so much more in 
common, they tend to take the spectator into their conscious- 
ness. ‘The eyes of Titian’s portraits may look into those of the 
spectator, but they know nothing of his presence, and are set 
into no communication with him, while in many of Shannon’s 
portraits they are brought into relationship—in that of Mrs. 
Patrick Campbell distinctly so, in the beautiful Lady with a 
Cyclamen, and the Souvenir of Van Dyck, among others. And 
yet, with this quality, they seem to be behind a veil, to be 
looking at the spectator, it is true, but from some world 
of their own, where everything is very quiet and still, or 
where, at least, there is a moment of profound pause and 


meditation. 
22 


CHARLES SHANNON 


It was the sense of form which underlay the methods and 
design of the great Florentines, the sense of colour and mass 
which underlay those of the Venetians. A study of Shannon’s 
design reveals at once his affinity with the Venetian method, 
though, of course, as in all good design of either sort, qualities 
of the other are to be found. His sense of line is rhythmic 
and beautiful, it is merely subordinated to the painter’s sense 
of colour and mass ; even in his drawings and lithographs the 
line is suggestive of tone and colour, rather than of form purely 
and simply ; they are more the drawings of a painter than of a 
sculptor or draughtsman ; they show the influence of Watteau 
in the sensitive and expressive touch, and even in the slightest 
of them the sense of decoration and design is never absent ; 
they make a pattern and suggest a pictorial treatment in paint. 
Every true design comes into being, not as an effort of 
knowledge or of scientific invention, but as the expression of a 
compelling desire to create, and the value of the design will 
depend on the value of the emotion which inspires it. Forms, 
which would be empty and unmeaning without any underlying 
inspiration, suffer a sea-change when this has been present at 
their creation, and become capable of transmitting to others 
the emotion by which they were inspired. Shannon’s designs 
are always most scholarly and scientific as regards all that is 


implied by an understanding of balance, of grouping, of the 
23 


CHARLES SHANNON 


flow of lines and the massing of shapes, but underlying this 
knowledge, which is used merely as a means to an end, is 
always the creative inspiration. His pictures invariably convey 
a mood of a perfectly definite nature, which being felt strongly 
by the artist from start to finish in his work, informs every 
part of the composition. | 

As has been said before, the mood is generally one of quiet- 
ness and contemplation, in a few instances only, such as the 
Pursuit (No. 28), and The Infant Bacchus (No. 10), does it 
become one of excitement. A fine example of the former sort 
is The Toilet (No. 5), in which the massive quality of Shannon’s 
design is well seen. The foundation of the structure is a 
double pyramid intersected at the bases and disguised by a 
third triangular form set across the picture in the stretched-out 
hand and arm of one of the figures ; there is something majestic 
in this movement, which endows the offered jewels with a 
significance that is not merely imaginary. The particular 
instance is here widened into a type; in the atmosphere of 
heavy silence there is a quality which unites these two figures — 


with the bejewelled and perfumed women of past ages : 


‘‘T am the queen of Cypriotes, my oarsmen labouring with 
brown throats 
Sang of me many a tender thing.” 


There is a regal massiveness in the principal figure, the linen 


in delicately crumpled folds falls away from the shoulders and 
24 


CHARLES SHANNON 


exposes a form like that of a Greek torso in its large 
simplicity. 

In The Incoming Tide (No. 21) the pyramid is used in its 
simplest form, but with how much novelty and freshness has 
it been here invested ; the line on one side is carried out by the 
drapery and continued by the knee and further leg of the 
reclining figure, and on the other is taken by the foam of the 
breaking wave down towards the head of this figure. The forms 
throughout are kept in broad, simple planes. The relief of the 
figures is not emphasized, it is an arabesque that is aimed at, 
rather than a sculptural detachment. Even the shadow sides 
of the figures tend to be lighter than their background, only in 
one or two places do they tell out as darks against a lighter 
ground. The point is of some importance ; the practice naturally 
varies somewhat in each picture, but the general tendency to 
the one device or the other marks a fundamental divergence 
in aim—towards pattern on one side, sculpture on the other ; 
the extreme limit being reached in the former type in a Japanese 
colour-print, and in one of Signorelli’s Orvieto frescoes, for 
example, in the latter. ‘The tendency to flatness is an important 
factor in the fashion of Shannon’s design. 

In The Woodnymph (No. 11) the composition is carried 
round the edge of the frame, a favourite, and quite original 
device of the artist, and one that he has used more than once 

25 


CHARLES SHANNON 


with the greatest success. This is a most sympathetic and 
charming picture, the attitude of the little faun, nestling against 
the side of the nymph, and the silently approaching and curious 
deer are lovely details in a whole that breathes a hushed atmo- 
sphere of woodland silences, and of wild things asleep. 

_ Tibullus in the House of Delia (No. 9) has some affinity with 
Rossetti in its crowded design and atmosphere of passion. 
There is a feeling about it of love-making carried to the point 
of satiety, of full-blown roses, and of revelry that has lost its 
savour ; in the air of disorder and waste in the house one can 
well imagine that this Delia, like her original, will prove 
unfaithful, and that Tibullus, after mourning a little, will find 
another mistress. | 

The Morning Toilet (No. 17). Here again the figures are 
arranged round the edges of the frame ; this picture is a strik- 
ing example of the painter’s newness of invention, and also of 
the interest of his arabesque of light and dark masses. If the 
reproduction be turned upside down, this quality proves its 
independent existence, apart from the meaning of the objects 
represented, by the delight it gives to the eye. The design is 
clear-cut and emphatic, and the colour ofa pure and delicate 
freshness, silvery rather than golden. | | 

The Bath of Venus (No. 8). This picture sums up the 


essence of Shannon’s quality in his earlier work ; whether it 
26 


CHARLES SHANNON 


be one to which he himself attaches a special significance I do 
not know, but, in its sense of importance and massiveness, it 
seems to me to embody both his personal atmosphere and his 
power of design at their best, in his earlier and more youthfully 
romantic phase. 

Another important picture is The Education of Bacchus 
(No. 22), which takes us to the ideal world of the golden age— 
rich, fertile, with grassy hills and shady trees, the fit home of a 
breed of golden lads and girls ; it is a delectable world where 
one may well love to wander; there is a feeling of a fresh 
summer morning and of the cheerful chatter of young voices ; 
the deer are moving up to higher pastures before the afternoon 
heat, and the children, for they are little more, will soon scatter 
on the pleasant errands of their pastoral life, to meet again in 
the evening and put the little god to bed. There is the true 
idyllic spirit in this picture, the young joy of the golden age, 
expressed in rhythmic lines and lovely colour. 

Shannon’s pictures for the most part do not illustrate any 
definite subject, his most typical themes are such things as 
The Toilet, The Incoming Tide, The Sapphire Bay, compositions 
based purely on patterns of colour and line, expressive of par- 
ticular moods; but in those instances, as in the one last 
discussed, where he illustrates a literary subject, the mood and 


the pattern remain the dominant factors, and that, I think, is 
27 


CHARLES SHANNON 


the real distinction between the right and the wrong kind of 
pictorial illustration. In the latter case, the desire to illustrate 
is predominant, and the design is left to take care of itself, while 
expressiveness is sought in over-emphasis of facial expression, 
sensational tone and colour, or in pictorially irrelevant and 
merely descriptive detail. In the former, the mood dictated 
by the subject suggests for its expression a pattern of lines 
and masses in itself zsthetically beautiful, and where that has 
been achieved it is merely pedantic to quarrel with the source 
of inspiration. ‘There exists in the minds of some people 
what is, in my opinion, a quite mistaken prejudice against any 
picture which expresses a literary subject, which would have 
been unintelligible to any of the great painters of the past. 
This prejudice ignores the distinction I have tried to make, 
and does not take into account the immense number of pictures, 
among the greatest in the world, which have this derivation. 
Such pictures as Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox are instanced 
as showing that a great picture can be made from any subject, — 
and it is perfectly true ; but Rembrandt himself made infinitely 
greater pictures out of The Supper at Emmaus and The Good 
Samaritan, than one of a slaughtered ox conceivably could be. 
Subject does count after all, if the painter is able to rise to it, 
if he can’t he will do better pictures from still life; when 


Botticelli painted the Pallas and Centaur he chose, or was given, 
28 


CHARLES SHANNON 


a literary subject, and made from it a picture of surpassing 
beauty in a purely zsthetic sense ; and what an irreparable 
loss would there be to the design without those lovely and 
startling shapes made by the shield and halbert, which are 
Athene’s literary attributes, and which neither Botticelli nor 
any other painter could have introduced out of his mere inner 
consciousness. 

Shannon being a true designer whose language is that of 
plastic art, when he chooses a literary subject expresses himself 
by means that are purely and strictly pictorial ; whatever object 
he introduces is so introduced on its capacity to help the beauty 
and expressiveness of the design, not merely for its story- 
telling value, though the latter quality is perfectly compatible 
with the former and constantly acts as a stimulus for the 
suggestion of beautiful shapes. It is this stimulus, the initial 
stimulus of thought, rather than that of pure vision, acting on 
a nature temperamentally gifted to express itself by means of 
plastic art, and endowed with that deepest kind of love of 
nature which can select, arrange, and reduce her forms to 
terms of line and rhythm, in fresh, lovely, and inspiring shapes, 
which has produced a large and perhaps even the greater part 
of the masterpieces of art. 

The work of Charles Shannon finds its place in this category ; 


it is based on those romantic and idyllic kinds of thought and 
29 


CHARLES SHANNON 


feeling which if they do not derive from literature in all cases, 
do so indirectly in many instances and directly in some. I 
should imagine that in his subject-pictures he is seldom stimu- 
lated by something actually seen, but rather that his thought 
takes visible form and that his emotion finds expression in 
appropriate design. It is on these two qualities, the strength 
and sincerity of his personal moods, and the power and rhythmic 
beauty of his design that his work must be judged. Throughout 
his life as a painter he has followed what he felt to be the most 
lovely and the best, and has expressed in a language of new 
and personal beauty the thoughts which, having their perpetual 
appeal to one of the most human and deeply-rooted sensations 


of delight, are ever fresh and new. 


E. B. G. 











PLATE 1. SOUVENIR OF VAN DYCK. (Miss Kate HarGoop). (1897). 


Oil. National Gallery, Melbourne. 








PLaTE 2. THE ARTIST. (THE MAN IN A Brack SHIRT). (1897). 
Oil. In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 






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PLATE 3. CHARLES RICKETTS. (THE MAN IN AN INVERNESS Coat). (1898). 
Oil. In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


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PLATE 4. THE LADY WITH A CYCLAMEN, (Hon. Mrs. CHALONER Dowpatt). (1899). 
Oil. In the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Chaloner Dowdall. 





PLATE 5. 


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(1900-1902). 


Oil. 





In the possession of William Pye, Esq. 





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PLATE 6. THE SAPPHIRE BAY. (1903). Oil. Inthe possession of John Quinn, Esq. 








Beate yes DEE LADY) WITH VAD PEATE ER (1903) Oi. Vente 








PLATE 8. THE BATH OF VENUS. (1898-1904). 


Formerly in the possession of the late Lord Northcliffe. 








Ptr Om oi UELUS IN THE HOUSE Ob DELEAS (1900-1905); 
Oil. Inthe possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 








PLATE 10. THE INFANT BACCHUS. (1900-1906). Oil. In the possession of the Artist. 





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PLATE 11. THE WOODNYMPH. (1903-1906). Oil. In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


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MISS LILLARD MACARTIVY IN DEE CHARACTERS Ol 


DONA ANA. (1907). Oil. Inthe possession of John Quinn, Esq. 





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PLATE 13. THE SCULPTRESS (Mrs. HiItton Younc). (1907). Oil. Musée du Luxembourg. 





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IDEAS, ti, SONU WABINGE Se (Olle) FINE “MUN AME TENG IEIMOINUANIE,  ISVANIEIE,, ((ieeXery)). 


Oil. Inthe possession of Sir Kaye Muir. 





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PPA Ene VLR, PATRICK CAMPBELE. (1908). Oil. National Gallery of British Art. 








PLATE 16. THE VINTAGE. (1910). Oil. Inthe possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 








PLATE 17. THE MORNING TOILET. (1912). Oil. Inthe possession of Edmund Davis, Esq. 


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Oil. 





mig, JOSE, NNGUNINBIR INKEISTIP, (axe nei). 
In the possession of the Hon. Kojiro Matsukata, Tokio. 








PLATE 19. THE LADY IN A THREE-CORNERED HAT. (1915). 
Oil. Inthe possession of Ralston Mitchell, Esq. 








PoArreZo. DE MANS Wille TEES GREE IO VASE (tomo). 
Oil. Inthe possession of Mrs. Edmund Davis. 





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PLATE 21. THE INCOMING TIDE. (1918). Oil. Inthe possession of the Hon. Kojiro Matsukata, Tokio. 





Pete 22 bik DUCA PLON OPS BACEH US: (1019): 
Oil. Inthe possession of Mrs. Edmund Davis. 





23. MIRIAM. (1920). Oil. Inthe possession of the Artist. 





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PLATE 25. THE CONVALESCENT. (1921). Oil. Inthe possession of the Artist. 








PLATE 26. VANITY AND SANITY. (1921). Oil. The Diploma Gallery, Burlington House. 











PLATE 27. THE GOLDEN AGE. (1921-1922). \ Oil. Formerly in the collection of the late Lord Northcliffe. 








PLATE 28. PURSUIT. (1922). Oil. Inthe possession of the Artist. 








PLATE 29. THE WOUNDED AMAZON. (1922). 01 


SS 


. In the possession of the Artist. 








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1900 


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FOR LHe B Annie Oh VEN Se: 
Drawing in Black, White and Sanguine. 


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PLATE 30 


te collection. 


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PeAte at. THE LATE Eo J. VAN" WISSELINGH. (1960): 
Study in Black, White and Sanguine. In the possession of Mrs. Van Wisselingh. 








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In the possession of the Artist. 


Study in Sanguine. 


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REAPER AND SOWER. 


PLATE 33. 





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PLATE 34. TWO DRAPED FIGURES. (1917). 
Study in Black and White Chalk. In the possession of the Artist. 


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PLATE 35. BATHERS. (1917). 
Study in Black and White Chalk. In the possession of the Artist. 





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GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 


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